Arriba! is billed as a party game to help improve your Spanish. Battle your friends and show off your awesome knowledge of the Spanish tongue.
There is just one iddy bit of a problem. It’s a bit useless if you don’t know any Spanish whatsoever and throws the game into the realm of pure guesswork as opposed to the learning experience it purports to be.
Actually, make that two problems. I’ve tried but I really can’t imagine the scenario whereby you’d invite someone round for some gaming and then get into a battle over who knows the most Spanish. Maybe dear readers, maybe you do. If so, then Arriba! is the game for you. Please don’t invite me to one of your parties though.
Arriba! is 200 points.
This title was 200 Points at the time of writing this review but has since been reduced to 80 Points.
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What? You’ve never had a Spanish contest party?
You sir, have never lived!
*Sigh* Cute idea, but if you want to learn and practice Spanish, there are manifold more useful ways to do so. Maybe one should pay attention in class rather than relying on a videogame, or try to use it when ordering at the local Mexican restaurant where the waitstaff will love you to death for trying?
You know the really, really sad thing? This is the sort of piffle that gets taken seriously by American teachers. I bet you in a month, most major school systems, no matter what level of education (primary, secondary, tertiary, graduate, postgraduate, but especially the secondary), will be pimping this as a wonderful example of how to practice your vocabulary in just a few minutes, and six months from now, this will be published in a much more graphically slick edition by one of the educational games companies. I really, REALLY wish academia would move on from the mid-80s “Let’s make a videogame educational, that way the kids’ll learn and not know it!” patronizing nonsense and get back to actually TEACHING.
I’m not trying to attack the game; I haven’t played it yet. I’m just venting some steam over what I see as continued educational wanking that makes people *feel* like they’re learning when they’re not. I will most definitely give this a try when I have access to a 360, though, maybe this will be one of those rare pieces of edutainment that works?
NP
native Spanish speaker and daughter of Spanish-speaking-and-teaching professors
Sorry, I meant to add that please, people, if you play this game, play it for fun and silliness and drunken laughs, not to try to learn something, please? It is just a game, after all. Otherwise you will make alien children from the planet Jabyrzy cry purple gel from their earholes, and that stuff is hard to clean
NP
I think it’s pretty fun. I don’t imagine that it’s supposed to be a Spanish learning kit, but if you just want to remember a few words and maybe have a few drinks, it’s not bad. I’d say it’s for kids. Either that or a sort of cheaper version of a wii title. Something a non-gamer could pick up and play a few rounds of and swap with someone else.
Also it’s a buck.